Page 100 of The Pushy Pixies Are Going Down
All of the pets had a card with their basic information on it—name, breed, age—but some of them also had their story, how they’d come to be at the shelter.
Winter knelt down and cooed at the little griffin who was curled up in a ball in the far corner of his cage. He looked terrified, the poor baby.
“Okay, he’s male, his name is Kuki.” He gasped. “Oh no, this poor baby. Apparently, his parents were killed by poachers, but there were forest rangers in the area. They heard the commotion and came running in. The poachers were trying to catch the poor baby, but the rangers were able to scare them off. The poachers got the parents’ bodies, but the rangers saved the baby griffin. He’s been here for three weeks already. They had to hand-feed him at first, but luckily, he’s been eating food, but he still drinks from a bottle.”
“Oh my god,” Lyric said. “He’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” They dropped to their knees beside Winter and held their hand out against the cage.
The griffin slowly lifted his head, and to my surprise, he made his way over to Lyric, giving their hand a sniff. After a few seconds, Lyric started petting him through the cage, and I could tell right then that Lyric had found their pet. It was unusual, and they’d need a special license to keep him, but they were clearly in love.
“Ahhhhh! He’s so stinkin’ cute, I could die.” Lyric was so excited, they had tears in their eyes. “Ihaveto hold him. Like, I fuckinghaveto!”
I snorted at that. “I’m sure we can get someone to let you.”
“Eeekkkkk! Yesssssss. Let’s do that.” They leaned in and spoke in a baby voice. “That’s a good boy. Who’s a sweet baby? You are. Yes, you are. Sweet, sweet baby.”
Winter slowly backed away and came to stand beside me, draping an arm around my shoulders and kissing my temple. “I think we found the right one.”
“Me too.”
“You doing okay?” I knew exactly what he meant. There were a lot of gnomes in here.
“I’m… just not looking at them, and they’re locked in cages, so they can’t get to me anyway.”
Win smiled softly at that. “Yeah, true.” He kissed my hair and whispered near my ear. “Even if they got out, I’d protect you.”
I snorted and lightly smacked his belly. “Yeah, okay, Mr. White Knight.”
He chuckled, then rested his forehead against my temple with a sigh. “You okay with helping Lyr set up their home for the griffin? They’re gonna have a lot to do over the next couple of weeks before an inspector comes out.”
Before they got the griffin license, an inspector would come examine their home and ensure it was griffin-safe and griffin-proof. Which meant they’d have to have a net put around their entire yard, among other things.
I nodded. “Yeah, sure. I think the shelter probably has someone, so hopefully they won’t have to wait a long time for an inspector to come out.”
He nodded. “We’ll figure it out.”
With a smile, I wrapped my arm around his back, pulling him closer. “Yeah… yeah, we will.”
“Uggghhhhhh!” I cried out as another volley of pixies came flying at me. “Good god, asshats! I’m trying to save your lives, you ungrateful little turds.”
Winter cracked up behind me, then swooped in with his net and managed to snag a big chunk of the mischief.
I already had a net full of them, so I hadn’t been able to defend myself against the onslaught.
“We’ve had a lot of pixie jobs lately.”
I sighed and followed him to the gate. “Tell me about it. They always go a little nuts in the fall.”
“I guess they have to store food for the winter, so it makes sense, but this year seems especially bad.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. We’d dealt with pixies every day for the last nine work days in a row. Usually, it was only gnomes I saw daily. “Yeah, agreed.” I huffed out a breath as we made our way to the truck, carrying our pixie burdens.
Once we made it there, we added them into the other two pixie crates that were slowly but surely filling up, then turned around and faced the house. It was a nice-sized single-family home with a lot of plants in their front and back yards. The owners hadasked us to come collect the pixies in their yard because they were getting aggressive and hurting the kids who lived there.
“Alright, I guess we gotta go back in there,” I said with a sigh, stretching my back out for a few seconds and shaking out my arms. I felt eyes on me, so I turned to Win and asked, “What?”
Even though I couldn’t see his mouth, I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners that he was smiling. “You’re adorable.”
I blinked at that, then glanced down at myself. I was wearing the pixie gear, looking like a spaceman in a HAZMAT suit, and he thought I was adorable? “I look like I’m about to fly off into space.”
